A planned (=maybe will actually appear someday) novel by vultur. In fifty words or less, an adventure/quest through the many small city-states, petty kingdoms, and vast wildernesses of the far-future Earth to retrieve the knowledge necessary to get humanity into space once more.
May be published as a Web Serial Novel, if ever at all.
Main characters: Vilalt. A warrior from the iron-age clans of Tephair. Considers himself to have failed when (in his teenage years) his parents were killed in a raid by Outerlings (=inhuman mutants); has trained obsessively since, and is now frightfully skilled.
- Barbarian Hero, pretty much.
- The Berserker, when people he is supposed to be protecting are threatened.
- BFS: He wields one of these, as is pretty common in Tephair, since its people are *very* large and strong by the standards of the rest of the world. (A combination of high-protein diet and harsh selection, both natural and artificial.)
- Super-Soldier: The *entire population* of Tephair is the result of an only-partially-failed attempt at this. And Vilalt is one of their most skilled warriors...
Calia. Born in the much higher-tech (mid-20th-century-level) nation, Kead, but raised by the nomadic People of the Redhorse after her parents died outside it.
- Good Is Not Nice. She is doing good, but when her colder, harsher side comes out...
Other tropes:
- After the End: Well, from our standpoint in the 21st century, after about ten ends. Civilizations have risen and fallen over and over.
- Forever War: Humanity against the Outerlings. Probably been going on for millions of years, though few people have any real clue about history more than a few generations back.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Pretty much anyone in authority. (But it's usually *true* - the world is far, far harsher than in our time; not just socially, but environmentally as well.)
- Schizo Tech: Especially in Kead. Research into some technological avenues are forbidden by laws old enough that no one remembers their original purpose.
- Time Abyss: The city of Zaphon. Several million years old, layer upon layer upon layer.
